For background, I'm in my mid-50's and came into driving late in life. I never had the opportunity to learn at the age when most people do. My husband is a professional driver and was vital to my ability to finally clear that hurdle. I get a lot of good advice from him, but I'd also like to supplement it with input from the public who may not be professionals but are experienced. I've been licensed now for six years, but until recently I haven't had a lot of chances to put my newly acquired skill to use. I would drive to church or the doctor's office, both places about 5 or 6 miles from my house, and that was pretty much it.
All of that changed about a month and a half ago, when I got a job. Full time. In a neighboring city, not the one I live in. Given traffic conditions, the commute takes me about half an hour each way. It would be less if I were brave enough for the interstate, but I'm not.
Also, I used to be constrained to daylight driving, but no longer. God has healed my night vision, praise His name. I don't know if He did it through weight loss (nearly 75 pounds!) and my diabetes being under much better control now, or if He just plain worked a miracle, but the details don't matter. John 9:25, all the way. I'm glad He did it, because we're getting into the time of year where it gets dark earlier in the evening and stays dark later in the morning. Either going to or from work, one or the other, or maybe both, it's going to be dark. It also gets pretty rainy and/or foggy around here. I'd never had much occasion to need headlights or windshield wipers, since I wasn't driving in the kind of conditions that would require them. I am now.
Since I'm avoiding the interstate, I face curvy roads and roundabouts and school zones and road construction. What are they constructing? More roundabouts. They seem to be in love with them around here. Supposedly they're safer than intersections with traffic lights, but my own experience is that I've had more close calls at roundabouts than I have at traffic lights.
The speed limit along my route never goes above 40. (For those outside the USA, I mean miles, not kilometers. It would be about 64k.) Along most of the route, it's 35 (56k). But I'm sure you know better than to think people actually observe the speed limit. I try to. Flow of traffic may force me to do 5 or 10 over, but not if I can help it.
So I recently stumbled on an online discussion where people are talking about how much they hate slow drivers, and how people who drive slowly "cause" road rage and accidents. It soon turned out that their definition of "slow" was not going less than the speed limit (which would frustrate me too). By "slow" they meant driving less than 10 miles an hour above it.
During that online discussion, I was derisively called "granny" and ordered to stay in the right lane. I brought up the subject of making a left turn. If I know I'm going to be turning left soon, I'm going to be in the left lane. I'm not going to wait until the last minute and take a chance on missing my turn because nobody would let me over. What do they expect me to do? Stay in the right lane until I get to where I'm turning, and then cut across traffic? Silence. No answer. Not even a mocking one. I guess I won that round. By the way, I don't know about other states, but here, the rule about keeping right except to pass applies only to the highways. Not to the kind of streets that have traffic lights. I'll grant you that the speed limits feel ridiculously low on my route to and from work, but it is the law.
Do you obey speed limits, even if they seem silly? Why or why not? How exactly do "slow" drivers (defined by that discussion as those who drive less than 10 miles an hour faster than the posted speed limit) "cause" road rage, or accidents? And does anybody have any handy hints for negotiating roundabouts?
Thank you.